With a friend like Jim Inhofe ...

By Dana Milbank, Published: February 1

If this is how Jim Inhofe treats his friends, one shudders to think what he does to his enemies.

“I have known Senator Kerry for many years and consider him a friend,” the Republican senator from Oklahoma said this week on the occasion of the Senate’s vote to confirm Inhofe’s dear friend John Kerry as secretary of state. “I again state that I consider him a friend,” Inhofe added.

Inhofe rewarded this friendship by being one of only three senators to vote against Kerry’s confirmation on Tuesday.

On Thursday, Inhofe had the chance to greet another old friend, former senator Chuck Hagel, a Nebraska Republican nominated to be President Obama’s defense secretary. “You and I are very good friends,” Inhofe informed Hagel at the confirmation hearing.

Inhofe further informed his friend Hagel that his “record is deeply troubling and out of the mainstream” and that Hagel believes in “appeasing our adversaries while shunning our friends.” Inhofe then recited a poem about the ills of appeasement.

Inhofe values his friendship with Hagel so much, in fact, that he decided to vote against his confirmation even before listening to his testimony.

1. That Kerry, he's such a radical environmentalist.

2. I think this is only of interest to those who bought into the idea of 'bipartisanism' and really

thought of Republicans as 'honest brokers' and all of that. I understand the confusion some are having as they need to support some Republicans like Hagel while also claiming Republicans are all insane and not having a good reason that Hagel, if not insane, remains in a Party with Rand Paul and Co....
Here is an example of why Dana Milbank is in my opinion a right wing idiot and smear merchant. Of the first Obama campaign, Dana Milbank:
"Barack Obama has long been his party's presumptive nominee. Now he's becoming its presumptuous nominee.
As he marches toward Inauguration Day (Election Day is but a milestone on that path), Obama's biggest challenger may not be Republican John McCain but rather his own hubris.